Adolescent Gender Roles: An Observation

As a role model for young women, I do my absolute best to model self-respect, confidence, and dedication to my work. It might be an image of me (OR YOU!) that these young people call up in their heads when they are developing an understanding of what women are and what is acceptable behavior for a woman.

Last week I observed the following interaction in a middle school classroom: A boy looks across the room to a girl who is actively engaged in her work and says “pencil”. The girl stops working, opens her pencil case and pulls out an unsharpened pencil. She asks her neighbor for a pencil sharpener and gets up and squats over the trash and sharpens the pencil, then she places the pencil on the boys desk. He looks at her but says nothing and returns to her seat and work. 

I am horrified. I am speechless. I think for a moment about how to address this- to the girl? to the boy? to the group? I ask the girl to come out into the hallway. I relate my observation without judgement to her and say, “tell me more about this?” She thinks for a moment and then looks at me and says, I guess he should have said thank you? I am facepalming in my head, but I said, well if I wanted to borrow a pencil from you, I’d have gotten up, come to your desk, asked you for one, I would have sharpened it myself, and I would have returned it and thanked you. With respect, because I care about you and your work. You don’t work for me, you’re busy on your own work, right?”

As a teacher, I am aware that these students might see me as an archetype for what a woman can be. I am beautiful and intelligent and hold a position of power at the school, I might be exactly the kind of person these young people need to see.

I said to her, you teach people how to treat you. You decide what is acceptable behavior from the people that are in your life and then you enforce that. Some day you may pick a person to be your partner, so start now by making sure that all your relationships meet the requirements for being in your life.

Hold the line girl! And she stood up a little straighter and went back to class.

More reading on Gender in Education at Lifting Limits.